We know what matters to you. These are events in the US that don’t necessarily make headlines every day, but they affect you, or your sister or neighbor. Every day, someone is affected. Without fail.

They fight for what is right. They don’t care who is looking – they are stalwart and persevering every moment of every day – with a Passion!

The following people get our respect and admiration in recognition of tireless advocacy in the face of a courageous effort for someone else.

Perhaps you do not know their names, but each one has put in hours to the wee morning times, busting their brains with writings, efforts, and passion – to make your life better.

We so much appreciate their efforts!

1. THE POWER MORCELLATOR

DR AMY REED AND HUSBAND DR HOOMAN NOORCHASHM

ALONG WITH REP. BRIAN FITZPATRICK

What matters to me is that every woman, girl and husband in the world know the name of Dr. Amy Reed, who fought to save women undergoing gynecologic operations from dying from a medical device, the power morcellator.

Honor and blessing for all the work Dr. Amy Reed did, paying the ultimate price so other women didn’t have to do so.

Amy just died from aggressive cancer that was spread from her uterus to her abdomen, lungs, and spine, due to the morcellator.

Stand by your woman.

After 23 years of cancer spreadby the morcellator, with not one adverse event reported by any surgeon until Amy herself filed a complaint, they won a blackbox warning on these medical devices, so its use decreased. While there is no ban on the morcellator, one can visualize it on the horizon.

Incredibly, gynecologists still advocate its use (well, it makes surgery faster, so they can do more cases and make more money) even though it can spread unknown cancer in women, causing them to … die. The morcellator is as ugly as the word sounds, and it needs to be banned (like it has been in Brazil, Canada, and removed from the UK, and other countries. In the USA, it’s “business as usual.”

If you know a woman going in for a hysterectomy, tell her to instruct the surgeon not to use the morcellator. Period.

Part of the proceeds of The Rebel Patient book by Dr. Margaret Aranda will go to SlaySarcoma.com Thank you for supporting patient safety and patient experiences.

The infamous “CDC Guidelines” for primary care physicians have turned into law, even though they stated it was not the intent. Well, they did not get off to a great start by holding secret meetingswithout a physician or patient advocate experienced who even had pain. It is an undisputed fact that this “crisis” was never a “crisis” for chronic pain patients who had gained quality of life from prescription opioids. We are sorry that many patients are telling us they were completely dropped from prescription refills, and cannot even find another doctor office that will accept them as a patient.

This is particularly devastating to many, as incredulously, the CDC published their own paper saying,

The amount of opioids prescribed in the US peaked in 2010 and then decreased each year through 2015.

Many are trying to figure out just where we stand on patient care, medications, addiction medicine, and the compassionate treatment of every individual. Period. We recognize these individuals for speaking out in defense of tens of thousands of patients:

RICHARD “RED” LAWHERN, PHD.

Exemplary acts of kindness can be seen on “Red’s”

ADVOCATE FOR PATIENTS WITH CHRONIC PAIN, RICHARD “RED” LAWHERN, PH.D.

website, Giving Something Back. From helping students to find graduate schools, teaching how to find information in the internet, and as an advocate for people in pain, he extends a range of volunteer activity. Red’s June 1, 2017 post by the National Pain Report is an incredible position of staunch patient support.

“On May 9-10, 2017, the US FDA held a workshop titled “Training Health Care Providers on Pain Management and Safe Use of Opioid Analgesics—Exploring the Path Forward.” I attended that Workshop in person to offer public comment on behalf of chronic pain patients…”

He boldly dives in on major points that leave one to question what authority or expertise really went into the CDC Guidelines. One is left with an uneasy feeling that there is much more background information on the convening and runnings of the committee. Red spells out secret meetings, selective input and questionable conclusions that are worth one’s own read here.

We are failing to expand addiction treatment access to the degree that it is needed. We are also failing to build policy to address the circumstances that drive drug seeking, including the abysmal lack of social opportunity for young adults in many communities. Finally, many agencies are tacitly or actively allowing pill control efforts to devastate the lives of pain patients who were stable until their care was completely upended. ~ Dr. Stefan Kertesz

Dr. Stefan is candid to highlight chronic pain patients who are thinking of committing suicide due to the lack of prescription opioids. As the situation continues to evolve, you can bet that you can count on us to represent patients first, quality patient care, and excellence in medicine.

~ ~ ~

So, just know that there are people who are looking out for you. Lots of them are doctors who still believe in “doing no harm” to patients, as Hippocratic oath goes. Furthermore, they believe in this:

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7 thoughts on “What Matters to You: Patient Advocacy”

Finally had 2 brain cells connect so I could find the blog. I’ll be starting mine as soon as the pills for chronic migraine ( that I didn’t take for 10 days) kick in.
Three guesses as to what happened because I missed the pills.
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